Welcome to the Picture Palace Campaign

The Picture Palace Campaign is the campaign to restore the cinema to Crystal Palace for the benefit of the whole community. We believe a new cinema will be a resource to improve the quality of life in and beyond Crystal Palace.

Cinema mixes commerce and culture, art and entertainment. The right cinema provides something for everyone.

We will work to bring the whole community together to support the development of a new cinema for Crystal Palace.

We are a community-led campaign supported by local residents, traders, our ward councillors, London Assembly members and local MPs.

We have great pleasure in being able to confirm that yesterday afternoon Everyman Media Group conditionally exchanged contracts for the acquisition of 25 Church Road.

Everyman plan to restore a four-screen cinema to Crystal Palace, bringing films to audiences on the big screen on a regular basis for the first time in fifty years.

Our previous campaign update confirmed that Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) advised Bromley council in May 2017 that it had decided to sell 25 Church Road and subsequently instructed its agents, Strettons, to invite competitive bids to acquire the building.

A range of potential purchasers expressed an interest, including cinema operators, some of whom were willing to share their plans with the Picture Palace Campaign on a confidential basis.

The competitive bidding process closed on 18 November 2017 and since then we have been anxiously waiting to learn of the identity of the successful bidder – as there was no guarantee that any cinema operators bid would be accepted.

Today we received the news we have long been campaigning and hoping for!

At this stage, this is all the information we can share with you but we hope that, like us, you will welcome this exciting development.

We will provide a further update once we know more. But for now, the campaign team would like to extend our wholehearted thanks to everyone who has supported us and been involved in the campaign over the past eight years. It has been a cast of thousands and we absolutely couldn’t have done it without you.

We would also like to extend a very warm welcome to Everyman to Crystal Palace and look forward to many happy moments at the pictures over the years to come.

Happy New Year!
With very best wishes
Picture Palace Campaign Team

Please take the time to look at the video local residents made in 2009 which captures how locals feel about the possibility of a cinema returning to Crystal Palace.